Forget about it, there’s always the 10m Lotto

BIRDS do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it. Let’s play Lotto.

Whether you draw on statistically sound forecasting systems, dream analysis, astrology, fortune-telling, crystal balls or good old-fashioned luck, the bottom line is — if you’re not in, you can’t win. And after yesterday’s budget, the hope of winning might be all that’s keeping you going.

So keep your head while all around you are losing theirs to the cut and thrust of the budget cleaver and hedge your bets on becoming the country’s first recessionary multimillionaire.

A 10 million tax-free windfall could buy you an acre of land in Ballsbridge; more than 10 million shares in Bank of Ireland; or allow you to make a reasonable bid for Iceland, a country of blonde valkyries, vodka factories and very dodgy finances.

All Lotto draws bar the jackpot have doubled the pot for tonight. A Lotto Plus One win nets 500,000,half a million and 700,000 is on the table for the winner of Lotto Plus Two.

So take your last 3 and risk it on one last turn of pitch-and-toss, making sure that the neighbour’s black cat is startled into shying your way.

Avoid ladders, breaking mirrors, spilling salt, sweating horses, inverted horseshoes, the number 13, looking at the new moon over your left shoulder and opening umbrellas indoors.

Seek out four-leaf clovers, chirping crickets, ladybirds, bluebirds, white lambs, itchy palms, a purse made out of a weasel’s skin, the back tooth of a horse and always, always carry a rabbit’s foot.

If scepticism kicks in, take a mathematical approach and work on producing a Lotto-winning algorithm before 8pm tonight. If you succeed in this, you need never play Lotto again.

And as the rest of us grapple with a nuclear budget fallout, you, the survivor, can escape. Wade through the Lenten ashes with your lucky winning numbers towards National Lotto HQ and champagne.

And raise a toast to the poor lambs of Lenihan, slaughtered to fatten the land. And head off with your millions to sunshine and good times with the ticket that bankrolled your flight.

Play it. It could be you.